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Performance-based research funding systems (PBFS) allocate direct institutional funding to universities and other public research organizations based on an assessment of their research. They appear in three main types: evaluation-based funding, indicator-based funding, and funding contingent on performance agreements. Combinations are possible. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss potential problems with PBFS and their possible solutions from the perspective of universities and other research organizations that are exposed to PBFS. The argument will be that the potential problems with PBFS depend on three factors, 1) the type and design of the system, 2) the strength of its influence on funding and reputation, and 3) the involvement of the funded organizations in collaboration about the design, implementation, management, and evaluation of the system.

The paper is focused on practical advice for the use of bibliometrics in research assessment in the social sciences. Guidelines are presented from three official sources of advice with a particular focus on individual-level assessments of applications for positions, promotions, and external funding. General problems with applying bibliometrics in evaluations of the social sciences are also discussed, as well as the specific problems with using the Journal Impact Factor and the H-Index. The conclusion is not that bibliometrics should be avoided in research assessment of social scientists. Used with care and competence, bibliometrics can be a valuable extra source of information, but not replace judgement in research evaluation.

The paper describes the full range of publishing and its purposes in the social sciences – from scholarly publishing via professional communication to societal interaction in public media – and how it is represented in five different contexts for research evaluation and funding. The five contexts are: applications for external project funding, applications for positions or promotions, indicator-based institutional funding systems, summative organizational evaluation systems, and formative organizational evaluation systems. The chapter provides a critical discussion of how publications from the social sciences may be filtered out or placed in predetermined hierarchies in these evaluation and funding contexts, and also of how the evaluation and funding procedures can be improved to appropriately represent social science research and publishing.

Balanced multilingualism in science ; In this paper, I propose balanced multilingualism as a useful concept for governing the tensions between strategies for internationalization and excellence in research on the one hand and strategies for promoting societal relevance, responsibility and impact of research on the other. I demonstrate that balanced multilingualism can be a dynamic and empirically based concept with which it will be possible to promote both types of strategies at the same time. The concept is first introduced in relation to some main research policies and instruments of the European Union (The European Research Area; The European Research Council; Responsible Research and Innovation; Open Science; Citizen Science) and to the situation in Morocco as it was mirrored and discussed at the international conference on Research Evaluation: Issues, methods and tools in Rabat in December 2017. Then follows two examples of how the concept of balanced bilingualism has already influenced policies for research funding and scholarly publishing in Norway. I conclude with a summary of the requirements for making use of the concept to align policies for international excellence and societal responsibility in research. ; publishedVersion

Chapter 1. Introduction -- Part I: Notions of Research Quality and Evaluation of Research -- Chapter 2. Identifying and Facilitating High Quality Research -- Chapter 3. Evaluating Transdisciplinary Research Quality -- Chapter 4. Evaluating and Improving the Societal Impact of Research -- Chapter 5. The Many Dilemmas of Grant Peer Review -- Chapter 6. How Citations Relate to Research Quality -- Chapter 7. The Ongoing Reform of Research Assessment -- Chapter 8. The Use of Metrics in Academic Recruitment -- Part II: Research Funding and Governance -- Chapter 9. Quality Criteria and Concentration of Research Funding -- Chapter 10. Balancing Basic and External Research Funding: a Comparative Analysis -- Chapter 11. Designing Performance-based Research Funding Systems -- Chapter 12. The Limits of Universities' Strategic Capacity for Steering Research -- Chapter 13. The Consequences of Paying to Publish.

This open access volume addresses major challenges in research policy and provides advice on how to approach them. With chapters designed as accessible policy briefs, the book serves as an essential resource for new actors in research policy. It offers evidence-based recommendations on approaching research governance, funding, and evaluation challenges by covering these topics: Identifying and facilitating high quality research Evaluating transdisciplinary research quality Evaluating societal impact The dilemmas of grant peer review How citations relate to research quality Reforming research assessment The use of metrics in academic recruitment Quality criteria and concentration of research funding Balancing basic and external research funding Designing performance-based research funding systems Strategic steering of research at universities The consequences of paying to publish Each chapter combines research with practical advice and provides an overview of the state-of-the-art in research on the specific topic, as well as references for further reading.

A radical reform of research assessment was recently launched in China. It seeks to replace a focus on Web of Science-based indicators with a balanced combination of qualitative and quantitative research evaluation, and to strengthen the local relevance of research in China. It trusts the institutions to implement the policy within a few months but does not provide the necessary national platforms for coordination, influence and collaboration on developing shared tools and information resources and for agreement on definitions, criteria and protocols for the procedures. Based on international experiences, this article provides constructive ideas for the implementation of the new policy.

International scientific collaboration has increased both in volume and importance. In this article, the authors study the interpretation of macro-level data on international co authorship collaboration. They address such questions as how one might explain country- to-country differences in the rates of international coauthorship, networks of interna tional scientific collaboration among countries, and patterns of international collaboration in scientific fields. Attention is drawn to cognitive, social, historical, geopolitical, and economic factors as potential determinants of the observed patterns. They present a methodology that gives one a measure, independent of size, of countries'propensities to collaborate internationally.

Books are important in the social sciences. Monographs and edited books allow for presenting original research based on methodologies or forms of collaboration that the format of the journal article does not serve as appropriately. Books are also used to engage directly with society. This chapter first introduces book publishing in the social sciences as a diversity of genres, purposes, and audiences. We then limit the scope to peer-reviewed scholarly book publishing and describe how publication patterns differ among the disciplines of the social sciences in the dimensions of books versus journal articles and national versus international publishing. Then we focus on the structure of the scholarly book publishing market with particular attention to developments towards open access publishing. The chapter ends with our suggestions for principles that can guide proper evaluation of book publishing in the social sciences.

We study the possible influences of the Russian conflict in the Ukraine on Russia's research productivity and international collaboration in science. For this purpose, we introduce and apply two recently developed indicators of relative intensity and balance in international collaboration. To see whether longitudinal trends have changed recently, we combine a long-term perspective based on annual updates since the year 2000 with a short-term perspective based on monthly updates since the beginning of 2022. The clearest change is that the productivity of Russian science, as measured within Web of Science, has dramatically decreased recently after several years of growth. However, the degree of international collaboration is only slightly affected. Consequently, while international collaboration decreases in absolute numbers, this decrease does not explain the general decline in Russian science, which must instead be explained by internal factors. Our conclusion is that the Russian conflict in the Ukraine has not considerably affected the long-term patterns and trends in international scientific collaboration, except in fields of research that heavily rely on large multinational infrastructures established through state agreements such as Particles and Fields in physics.

Open Access (OA) emerged as an important transition in scholarly publishing worldwide during the past two decades. So far, this transition is increasingly based on article processing charges (APC), which create a new paywall on the researchers' side. Publishing is part of the research process and thereby necessary to perform research. This study analyses the global trends towards paying to perform research by combing observed trends in publishing from 2015 to 2020 with an APC price list. APC expenses have sharply increased among six countries with different OA policies: the USA, China, the UK, France, the Netherlands, and Norway. The estimated global revenues from APC among major publishers now exceed 2 billion US dollars annually. Mergers and takeovers show that the industry is moving towards APC-based OA as the more profitable business model. Research publishing will be closed to those who cannot make an institution or project money payment. Our results lead to a discussion of whether APC is the best way to promote OA.

In 2016, the United Nations officially launched the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to address urgent global challenges over the next 15 years. Among the seventeen SDGs, Gender Equality (SDG5) is recognized as important for the achievement of the other sixteen goals because gender inequality exists across education, employment opportunities, healthcare facilities, life expectancy, family life, and political participation, thereby holding back the capacity of half of the world's population to contribute to solutions to the global challenges. This bibliometric study explores gender balance and differences within SDG5 oriented research during the first five years after the implementation of SDG5 in 2016. Unlike most research oriented at other SDGs, this field of research has low activity and a dominance of female researchers. Within the field, male and female researchers focus on partly different topics. Publications by male researchers tend to be more cited while potential readers show more interest in publications by female researchers. This investigation highlights the importance of increasing gender diversity in SDG5-related studies, which is helpful for the achievement of sustainable development.

On December 31, 2020, The National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) released a list of 65 international scientific journals, all of them indexed by the Web of Science, that were said to be potentially in conflict with academic rigor. The list immediately influenced the publication patterns of Chinese researchers. A year later, on December 31, 2021, CAS released a revised and reduced list of 35 questionable journals and said the publishers in the meantime had reacted constructively and improved the procedures of their journals. This study aims to provide an understanding of the motivations and criteria behind the list, partly by reviewing Chinese policy documents and public debates, partly with a quantitative analysis to detect the relative importance of the criteria used to select the journals for the list.